NFL champions usually bear the competitive scars from having fallen maddeningly short of that goal just a year or two earlier.

As Denver Broncos head coach John Fox said this week, “Sometimes setbacks are setups for better things to come.”

That’s the case with both teams playing Sunday in the Big Apple’s first Super Bowl, and the NFL’s first outdoor championship game played in the northern U.S. since the mid-1960s.

At 6:30 p.m. EST, Fox’s Broncos face Pete Carroll’s Seattle Seahawks across the Hudson River at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (CTV/FOX).

A year ago, quarterback Peyton Manning and the Broncos had been the No. 1 seed in the American Football Conference (AFC), but they were upset in their first playoff game by the eventual Super Bowl champs, the Baltimore Ravens.

Orlando Franklin of Toronto is one of three Canadians slated to play in Super Bowl XLVIII. (Seattle’s punter Jon Ryan of Regina and rookie tight end Luke Willson of LaSalle, Ont., are the others.)

Franklin is Denver’s right offensive tackle who protects Manning’s frontside. Last July he spoke to me about how that stunning loss to Baltimore was motivating the Broncos in the off-season, and would continue to do so.

“It definitely humbled us,” Franklin said before training camp. “We’re all eager and excited to get back out there. We know what we have.”

Despite losses of some of their best players to injury, Denver often looked like the most formidable team in the league this season.

Similarly, the Seahawks’ 2012 season ended last January in no less heartbreaking a fashion. In the divisional playoff round, they trailed 20-0 at halftime in Atlanta, stormed back to take a 28-27 lead with 31 seconds left, but lost on a long, desperation field goal.

“We were so close to tasting victory in that game,” Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner told QMI Agency. “So when you feel that pain, that sharp pain in your chest and in your mind, you never want to feel that pain again.

“You use every bit of that as motivation to work harder in the off-season, to shore up your mistakes, to watch more film.”

For their part, the Seahawks at times this season also looked like the NFL’s most formidable team. Like the Broncos, they finished as the top team in their conference and with the same 13-3 record.

The symmetrical comparisons pretty much end there.

Denver owns the league’s most lethal offence. Particularly, the most lethal passing attack, featuring Manning and the most prolific, dangerous receiving corps around.

Few of the previous 47 Super Bowls have featured so compelling a showdown.

How will it go? Can Manning make the Seattle defensive backs look as helpless as he has so many others? Or will they blanket his receivers long enough to force Manning to hesitate, and thereby allow the Seahawks’ fierce pass rushers to swallow him up?

The game might well come down to how often, and how successful, Manning can throw to receivers lined up on his right -- Seattle’s left. That’s where Sherman patrols.

According to ESPN, opposing passers have thrown the ball Sherman’s way only 59 times this season – the lowest of any corner in the league. Sherman broke up 16 of those passes and picked off eight others.

Tall at 6-foot-3, long-armed and as physical as any defensive back in the league, Sherman and his motor mouth are an intimidating presence. But he isn’t perfect.

We asked Hall of Fame receiver Cris Carter how Sherman can be beat.

“I would try to run some in-breaking routes -- some in-cuts, or quick slants,” Carter said. “Because when he shades you in man (coverage), it looks like he’s head up, but he’s a little bit outside of you. So you have to give him a little hint (to the outside), get him to open up a little more, and get inside of him.

“But there’s no margin of error for the quarterback.”

Thankfully for the Broncos, that quarterback is Manning.

After breaking NFL records for most passing touchdowns (55) and passing yards (5,477) in a season, the 37-year-old could perhaps seal his legacy as the greatest quarterback -- maybe even the greatest player -- in league history with a win.

It would be Manning’s second Super Bowl triumph, making him the toast of Broadway. For one mild weekend, anyway.